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Energy Resources

Geologic Carbon Sequestration

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  • Highlights
  • Projects
Highlights
Projects
Geological Carbon Sequestration
Barry Freifeld (left) with Program Manager from Australia, Sandeep Sharma preparing equipment for geologic carbon sequestration project.

The Geological Carbon Sequestration (GCS) Program uses theory along with lab, field, and simulation approaches to investigate processes needed to inform and guide the safe and effective implementation of geologic carbon sequestration.

Highlights

Project

Brine Extraction and Storage Test (BEST)

The overall objective of the EPRI-led BEST project to be performed at the Lansing Smith electric generating station near Panama City, Florida, is to help develop cost-effective pressure control, plume management and produced water strategies that can be used to improve reservoir storage efficiency and capacity, and demonstrate safe, reliable containment of CO2 in deep geologic formations with CO2 permanence of 99% or better.

Project

Core Carbon Storage and Monitoring Research (CCSMR)

The Core Carbon Storage and Monitoring Research Program (CCSMR) aims to advance emergent monitoring and field operations optimization technologies that can be used in commercial carbon storage projects.

Project

Off-shore Geologic Carbon Sequestration in the Gulf of Mexico (GoMCarb)

LBNL is working with the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) and other partners in the Gulf of Mexico Partnership for Offshore Carbon Storage (GoMCarb) aimed at ensuring safe, long-term, and economically viable offshore storage of carbon in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) region.

nrap_image2
Project

National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP)

The National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) — an initiative within DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and led by the National Energy Technology Laboratory—applies DOE’s core competency in science-based prediction for engineered–natural systems to the long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Program Overview

The Geological Carbon Sequestration (GCS) Program uses theory along with lab, field, and simulation approaches to investigate processes needed to inform and guide the safe and effective implementation of geologic carbon sequestration. Through collaborations with partner organizations that lead major field projects involving CO2 injection, GCS program investigators confront and solve real-world challenges in monitoring, modeling, and data analysis. Through applying their world-leading capabilities, EESA investigators develop innovative and deployable scientific solutions to these challenges with an emphasis on applicability, knowledge dissemination, and technology transfer.

Key topics of investigation include:

  • Capacity, trapping mechanisms, and permanence
  • Field studies at CO2 injection sites, including fluid sampling under in situ conditions (U-Tube)
  • Monitoring and verification using geophysical (e.g., seismic) and surface methods (e.g., InSAR)
  • Containment assurance (leakage, seepage, and well-blowout impacts and mitigation)
  • Impacts on the environment, including to groundwater and induced seismicity
  • Risk-based assessment and certification
  • Performance prediction (using TOUGH suite of codes)
  • CO2-enhanced hydrocarbon recovery options
  • Machine learning for faster simulation and data analysis

 

Featured Projects

Project

Brine Extraction and Storage Test (BEST)

The overall objective of the EPRI-led BEST project to be performed at the Lansing Smith electric generating station near Panama City, Florida, is to help develop cost-effective pressure control, plume management and produced water strategies that can be used to improve reservoir storage efficiency and capacity, and demonstrate safe, reliable containment of CO2 in deep geologic formations with CO2 permanence of 99% or better.

Project

Core Carbon Storage and Monitoring Research (CCSMR)

The Core Carbon Storage and Monitoring Research Program (CCSMR) aims to advance emergent monitoring and field operations optimization technologies that can be used in commercial carbon storage projects.

nrap_image2
Project

National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP)

The National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) — an initiative within DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and led by the National Energy Technology Laboratory—applies DOE’s core competency in science-based prediction for engineered–natural systems to the long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Project

Off-shore Geologic Carbon Sequestration in the Gulf of Mexico (GoMCarb)

LBNL is working with the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) and other partners in the Gulf of Mexico Partnership for Offshore Carbon Storage (GoMCarb) aimed at ensuring safe, long-term, and economically viable offshore storage of carbon in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) region.

Program Contacts

Curtis M. Oldenburg
Senior Scientist

Helen G. Prieto
Program Operations Analyst

News & Events

EESA Scientists Contribute to DOE GTO Research on Critical Minerals

February 24, 2021

  Scientists in the Energy Geosciences Division are contributing to research sponsored by the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) investigating the potential extraction of lithium, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals that are dissolved constituents of hot geothermal brines that are used to produce  electricity. Far more information is currently needed, for instance, about…

Getting to Net Zero – and Even Net Negative – is Surprisingly Feasible, and Affordable

January 29, 2021

Regardless of the pathway we take to become carbon neutral by 2050, the actions needed in the next 10 years are the same. (Credit: Jenny Nuss/Berkeley Lab) Reaching zero net emissions of carbon dioxide from energy and industry by 2050 can be accomplished by rebuilding U.S. energy infrastructure to run primarily on renewable energy, at a…

EESA Members Invited to Join Pod: Unlearning Racism in Geoscience

January 27, 2021

  This week marks the launch of a new education and training course called Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE). Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, URGE‘s primary objectives are to (1) deepen the community’s knowledge of the effects of racism on the participation and retention of Black, Brown, and…

Six Scientists Awarded EESA Early Career Development Grants

January 26, 2021

  Six early career scientists have been awarded EESA Early Career Development Grants. Each project is aligned with the goals of the EESA Strategic Vision.  The EESA Early Career Development Grant (ECDG) program provides an opportunity for early career scientific staff to develop new concepts, tools, and approaches with the potential to complement/enhance existing EESA…

EGD Postdoc Fellow Receives Young Researcher Presenter Award

January 21, 2021

Pramod Bhuvankar, an EGD postdoctoral fellow working with research scientist Abdullah Cihan, received a Young Researcher Presenter Award during the 2020 Computational Methods in Water Resources conference in December. His presentation, “Pore-scale simulations of permeability decline in porous media due to fines migration,” described a pore-scale CFD study of clay mobilization in porous media due…

Berkeley Lab Partners with International Collaborators in Geothermal Energy Research

January 20, 2021

  Scientists from the Energy Geosciences Division have begun working with European partners on three new geothermal research projects through the Department of Energy’s membership in GEOTHERMICA, a transnational consortium that combines the in-country financial resources and research expertise of 15 participating countries to demonstrate and validate novel concepts in geothermal energy use. This marks the…

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